Majaleian Knights: Golden Vanity
by The 483
Summary: An inside look at the origin of one of our favorite leading ladies in this wonderful series that seems mafde for our input.


**Golden Plated Beauty**

Ah, yet another attempt to broach head first into something I sometimes actually think I do a decent job at. (I don't own this show or it's shwag.)

**A Mejalian Knight**

Blue steel flashed with a deadly swish of displaced air. The combatant in the white fencing gear with the Blue #2 stenciled on the front dodged backwards not a millisecond too soon. There was a small tearing noise as the tip of the sword nipped a gash appeared across the front of their garb. #2 stumbled slightly, and #1 pressed in with a vicious jab at #2's belly. #2 dropped on their back, and slashed at one's knees. The flat edge of the sword made contact with the outside of the right leg, and one went down. A shrill whistle shrieked across the well upholstered practice room.

"Foul, Miss Basil! Victory goes to Miss Gershawn." #1 got slowly to her feet, favoring her right leg. She pulled off her fencing mask, and shook out her long, beautiful blond hair. She shot a dirty look over at #2, before putting her nose in the air, and walking out of the special square of ruby carpet. Number 2 let her head slid to the ground, and simply lay there until the room cleared. As the last of the spectators left the well cushioned bleachers, she stood, and removed her hood. She ran a hand over her roughly cropped blond hair; her green eye's still red from the tears her defeat had loosed. She walked to the locker room, and started stripping, putting her outfit into her locker. She grabbed a towel and marched to the showers, her bare feet making a slapping noise across the hand laid stained glass floor tile. After she hung her towel on a hook, she paused to examine herself in the full length gold inlayed mirror.

Jura was disgusted with what she saw. Her 14 year old frame was just starting to get those pockets of fat that all women get, but it wasn't visible beneath the carpet of bruises that covered her gangly body. She sighed again, and stepped into the shower, which was decadent study of in non slip white marble with inset gems in spiral patterns. She stepped into the center of the room, and a series of fine water jets spurted to life. A large perforated nozzle rained down directly on her head, while angle heads sprayed gently and cycled on or off according to the direction she faced. She sighed again as she enjoyed cascade of warm water. She held up her hand and the sensor dispensed a thin stream of glorious smelling shampoo into it. She lathered it into her buzzed hair, and let her mind wander.

Maria Elden was born to a life of privilege. Her parent's parents had founded a globe spanning delivery service endorsed by Grandma Anri and the rest of the Council of Matriarchs. Her first 16 years were all private schools, social adoration and the best Mejale had to offer. This was not unusual for direct descendants of the first generation.

(As of this time, approximately 70 years after the Colony Ship limped to Mejale.) She could trace her ancestry back to her Four Maternal grandparents, Nora and Freda Basil, and Forestene and Henrietta Elden. Her own parents, Susanna Elden and Scarlet Basil, were one of only a few dozen of what were considered to be "pure" Mejaleians. In order to supplement the meager few hundred women that came on the colony ships, the set up a number of "host-mother centers." These centers, set in spots that cities were being built, used powerful HOLMES III computers to use the mass amounts of stored DNA to create several generations' worth of genetic diversity and install them in artificial wombs. Then, a special mix of steroids and other, unmentioned chemical compounds accelerated the growth, so that the planet had an advanced civilization in 30 years, instead of several sentences. This spawned an invisible line of aristocracy, with those born of the First Generation holding themselves above those born in the HMC's.

Once Maria reached her sixteenth year, she then got a high level clerks position in the local branch of the family company. By 25, she had earned a string of promotions, and was in position to take over with her Fama's pending retirement in the next year. But, the political climate outside of the Matriarchal council was anything but stable. A strong push by a competing company drove them out of business. So, at 25 years old, she was left jobless, and a deep set feeling of inadequacy, and for the first time, the aristocrat found herself with a blank slate. She had a wonderful nest egg stored, which was a benefit of shrewd investment and a 6 figure income from an early age.

She wondered aimlessly at first, and eventually wound up at a small bar just outside the military zone in Ellcee. She had been going there for a week, when she noticed a bartender that worked there. She had long, silky blond hair that reached past her waist. Maria noticed an arousal she had never felt before. After a few weeks, (and a few drinks) she asked her out. A few months later, they were dating. Her name was Evangeline Cortsan. But, with her relationship with Eve grew, her relation with her ageing parents withered. They felt arrogantly superior to the HMC kids, which Eve was. With her relationship, Maria found that she had a desire to provide again, and found herself as head of a family. She had a person she wanted to spend her life with, and a beautiful baby girl.

Jura was a happy, though not especially privileged child. When Jura was 9, they moved into the mostly finished new "Ecological" housing project that was being constructed by the world famous Gisborns. Jura, Maria, and Evangeline lived in their beautiful home for a year and a half before the accident. The Yule's Hope reactor had a catastrophic failure in the main exhausted chimney, which meant in layman's terms meant that it was clogged. In short order, this untreated malady led to it exploding. The failure and meltdown of the power plant took both her parents, and any hope she had for the future. She was stuffed in a transient home, and was there for a sorrowful blur of a month. One rainy night later, and everything got worse. An old woman showed up, and Scarlet Basil took little Jura into her home.

Now, all Mejaleians had heard the story of Cinderella, where the young orphan girl was adopted by the horrible woman. Then, she turns out to be beautiful and meets princess charming and lives happily ever after in a glorious castle. Well, Jura's story started out that way, except for the part where things get better. It had been four years of scrubbing floors, cleaning things that were already clean, and doing horrendous chores for endless hours. The vicious beatings were more for humiliation than for causing harm. The worst was when she sheered off her main of glowing golden hair, and kept it shaved to a mere fuzz. She said that it was because he did not permit the unsanitary mop of long hair in her house. Partly it was true, her own hair just a short buzz, but also, the golden hair reminded her of the shame of what her daughter had done. That and the scathing insults aimed at her, and her parentage, and her Ohma, specifically. The entire 4 years of her life with her grandmother went back and forth between her trying to turn Jura into a lady, while berating her and stripping her of all self-esteem. This led to a long string of classes that Scarlet never viewed; first Elocution, then dance, eating, even walking lessons, and now, fencing and swordplay. This last was the first time she had actually enjoyed any of the tasks that Scarlet had set her to.

Jura sighed again, and thumped the pressure switch on the gleaming wall. The jets of water cut off abruptly, and Jura grabbed her towel. She had only a few minutes to get home before she would be… well, not missed, but noticed that a chore was not being done. She hurried, not wanting to and to the carpet of bruises that covered her.

***

The crowd applauded ad the girl in suit #1 dropped to the mat, a slice across her abdomen a lasting, ugly reminder of her failure. The male propaganda was outlandish in most respects, but they were close to the mark about their lack of mercy. #2 spun her sword, and then threw it into the ground; its tip buried 3 inches into the mat.

"Match, Miss Basil. Congratulations on your victory, and we hope to see you in future tournaments." The announcer shut down the speakers, and the stands began to empty. Jura helped her opponent up, but left her mask on. Jura had turned 17 scarcely a fortnight previous, but Scarlet still kept Jura's hair shorn to little more than a yellow fuzz. She glanced around the emptying room, noticing without really noticing that a blue haired girl was still seated next to an elderly blonde in a brown coat. The only reason Jura even slightly noticed the woman, was the magnificent fall of golden hair she had. Jura finished her visual journey; she sighed, picked up her sword, (her prize for her victory) and headed for the shower. This shower was a stalled off area, very different from the glorious one of her first training. She did not know why Scarlet had, or let Jura continue in fencing. (This was because it had been Maria's favorite past time, before she started working, though Scarlet would never tell her that.) This would be her last day of fencing though, as Scarlet felt the need to punish her for being good at fencing. She stepped under the sprinkle of water. It was a few minutes later that she noticed the blue haired girl had followed her in. She noticed, because the other girl spoke; she was in the stall next to her.

"You were very good out there, miss Basil." Jura was shocked to hear the voice, but also by the voice itself. It devoid of emotion, but not really flat, but like all the expressiveness null signal.

"Er, thank you?" She replied shakily. "But who are you?" She managed, barley, to conceal her irk at being interrupted. The girl's voice didn't change at all.

"My name is Meia, and I am here to offer you a home."

"I already have a … what do you mean?" Jura was intrigued. She wondered what the outrageous terms would be, but figured it had to be better than her current situation.

"My employer will await you in the contest room when you are finished." Jura listened to the footsteps echo and fade, still puzzled. She hurried with her shower for the first time since she started in fencing. A meager 4 minutes later Jura stepped from the stall, clean and wrapped in a towel, 2 later she was wrapped in her street clothes. She entered the contest area, and looked around. The blue haired girl was gone, but the elderly blond was still in her seat. On her right, a muscular woman with green hair, and a lean and mean looking woman with grey hair was on her left. The grey haired one was typing furiously on a data pad, while the green haired one was chewing on a metal wire and looking smugly relaxed.

"Well, hello there, miss. That was an excellent show you put on." The blond smiled warmly between sentences, a sense of motherly kindness wafted so strongly from her that Jura wanted very much to impress her.

"Thank you, Ma'am." Her answer was so meek and subservient, that the blonde was shocked.

"No need to be so stiffly formal, dear, you may call me Magno." Jura blushed, and Magno continued, gesturing to her right. "This is my crew chief, Miss Gascogne Rheingau."

"Howdy, little miss." She and a powerful, deep, and friendly voice, and she managed to not sound at all condescending. She gave a gruff smile. Magno gestured to her left.

"And this is my second in command, Buzam." She did not even look up from what she was doing.

"Just call me B.C." Her voice was brisk and business-like, with a neutral severity to it.. Jura was slightly confused, not sure what a crew chief was, or a second in command, but guessed that maybe she was going to get a job offer. But her hopes didn't get up to high, as Scarlet would never let her have a job. B.C. brought a small shallow crescent up to her ear. She nodded, said "Thanks, Meia." She said. "Captain, Meia says that the patrols are getting closer to the rendezvous point." Magno sighed.

"I guess well have to hurry this up then, oh boo, that's no fun." Her exasperated face cleared up, and she assumed a business like demeanor. "Alright, Jura, I am the captain of a band of pirates based in nearby space." Jura looked briefly surprised. She had heard of groups of pirates attacking freighters and other system ships. Most pirates only managed an average of a single successful raid before the military managed to eliminate them.

"You're the Magno Vivan?" Her shock replaced by awe. The smirk that crossed her face confirmed it, and Jura's heart jumped. Was she actually offering her a position in the most successful band of pirates that Mejale had ever known? Was this the princess come to take her away from the terrible life she lives? B.C. looked insistently.

"Long story short, we know your background, and think you would be an excellent addition to our Dread squadron, if you'd care to learn to fly a aerospace fighter, and be a pirate. But I am afraid that I need your answer promptly, as our friendly police force is being quite insistent in finding out who has landed where we did. So, miss Basil, are you in or out?" Jura blinked a few times, and then turned on her heel. She strode to a cabinet, pulled a scabbard out. She pulled the sword free of the mat, and sheathed it in a single movement.

"Ma'am, I would be honored to join you." Magno looked tired, pleased, and sad all in one expression.

"I thought I said to knock of the Ma'am stuff." She said quietly to herself, eliciting a grin from Gascogne. "Very well, follow us." Magno stood slowly, the other two as well, and then at a brisk pace left the building. It was a quarter mile to the unmarked landing space that was actually an abandoned warehouse. No sooner had Jura followed Magno, B.C. and Gascogne up the loading ramp into the small troopship, before the blue haired girl materialized from the shadows and rushed up. She poked a wall switch, and the ramp sucked into the hull, and the door snapped shut. A green light lit upon the panel, signaling that the cabin was air tight. As soon as B.C. hit the pilot's chair, the ship bucked of its skids, toppling Jura, the only one not braced, to the deck. She was to busy being crushed by gee to marvel at her first time in a space faring craft. The 5 minutes it took for the small craft to break the atmosphere, and it was the longest 5 minutes of her life. Just as she was thinking she was going to die from the horrid compression in her chest, when the pressure abruptly ceased. But she had no time to take comfort, because all pressure ceased. She decided that she was not a fan of free fall, and her stomach decided to agree with her. Luckily, this was not Meia's first recruitment trip, and had a cloth bag in place over her face just in time.

The shuttle touched down in the main hanger of the asteroid base as softly as it had taken of violently. Jura was taken by surprise at the restatement of gravity, and got reunited with the floor, and the cloth bag. She got shakily to her feet, and shuffled after Gascogne, who was just walking through the door. She got herself in order, and walked to the door. There were about a dozen people that weren't technicians in the landing. The techs orange jumpsuits made them stand out against the blue steel covered rock. To Jura's huge gratitude, everyone politely failed to notice her pale face and sickly looks. She looked around as she walked down the ramp. The Captain, Gascogne, and B.C. were just disappearing through an irising pressure door. Meia had stopped, and was talking to a red haired girl with a white and black padded flight suit. She nodded a couple of times, then turned and walked at Jura as Meia left. The girl waited at the bottom of the ramp until Jura reached the bottom. When Jura arrived, the girl held out her hand, which Jura took and shook.

"Hi there, … um…" She paused for Jura to state her name. She did. "Ah, thank you. Hi there Jura, m'names Velour, and Meia asked me to show you around and to help get you 'situated." She smiled, and Jura felt embarrassed. Velour was very pretty with her rich brown skin, red hair, and large light gray-brown eyes. Jura felt a jealousy she usually felt when she thought about her own ugliness.

"… Thank you ma'am." Jura said with a little bow, to which Velour looked genuinely shocked."

"Huh, what was that?" She blinked rapidly. "I've never been called that before."

"I get the feeling most of the people here haven't." Jura said under her breath. Her eye's then bulged and she braced for the blow. Velour just nodded.

"Yeah, you're probably right. Really, though, if you think about it, the only ones that rate it would be the Captain, the Commander, and Miss Gasco…"

"THAT'S GASCOGNE!" Gascogne ad reentered and was helping her crew attach hoses to the ship. Her outcry caused everyone to flinch, and Velour recovered and continued.

"…and maybe, Meia, when we're out in the Dreads." Velour started walking, and Jura followed.

"This whole base is carved into a hollowed out asteroid reinforced with steel. The rest of the 'roids around are seeded with radar signal emitters which can confuse all the ships we've encountered so far. As most ships bigger than dreads fly completely by radar, and our system gives them ghosts, and other static to keep them from finding us."

While she talked, they had gone through a number of hallways and arrived in a large cavern. Tables dotted the room welded to the steel floor, with faded designators showing where patches had been bulkheads. An assortment of mismatched chairs, salvaged from ships they had attacked. There were even three at on table that had been ripped out of the cockpit of a luxury liner. A pair doors led to an expansive industrialized kitchen facilities. A small window with a conveyer belt fed from the kitchen, with a sneeze guard suspended above it. The conveyer itself was comprised of three adjacent moving strips that deposited them into three separate carousels for different food types. As they walked past the carousels, Velour snagged a muffin, and bit into it.

"So," she said after her first bite, pausing and turning around, "So, What do you want to do first, go to your quarters, or get your assignment from the Captain?"

"Um… would you show me to my Quarters, please?" Velour nodded, took another bite of her snack, and headed out.

A missile detached from its rack, slid into its tube, cycled into vacuum, and ignited its main drive, and flew into space. As it cleared the tube, it banked right, and looped over an asteroid in pursuit of its target. It rocketed around a few more rocks, entered a clear area, and accelerated toward its target. It bucked violently as if flew into a withering spray of green energy rounds. The shell cracked, buckled, and a round nicked the warhead, and detonated.

A red single seat space craft blew through the debris field, leaving a blue trail in its wake. It arched and shot toward the large freighter, following a dozen other blue lines racing toward it. It spun, releasing a flight of six missiles toward the ship. They joined with the other sixty missiles as they flew toward the ships engines. The explosions were silent in the void, but the cooling engine cones and rain of shattered steel showed that the ships movement system was crippled. The pilot felt the _Chug Chug Chug_ of her canons as she strafed the hull, trying to hole it while her sisters silenced the point defense turrets. After another run and no success, she flooded the capacitors for her laser canon mounted under her cockpit. The eight mirrors that comprised the focusing element stated to spin. The eight beams of light hit the mirrors, came together into a single super saturated beam. She directed it to a single spot on the hull. After a few seconds, the spot glowed white hot, and then started venting molten metal and atmosphere. Three other ships stuck magnetic tethers to spots on the hull, to counter the spin from the atmosphere venting from eight different spots. When the air finished venting, the beetle shaped delivery ship docked at the main hatch, and deposited the 48 person snatch team into the ship. They scavenged the ships electronics, supplies, and cargo, and loaded it onto the delivery ship.

It had been a year since Jura had joined the Magno's crew, and she had to emit, she had never known happiness like this. She hadn't been a part of a family in so many years, it was startling at first. It took only a couple of weeks to get fully integrated and used to "ships" routine. While she was getting adjusted, she had a revelation. No one here really knew her; she could be who ever she wanted. There was no one here to call her ugly, tell her she's nothing, and demean her endlessly. So she started growing out her hair, got it extended to around two feet as soon as the natural stuff was long enough to attach more to. She started exercising, and working to make her bodies something she could be proud of.

The red single seated docked with the delivery ship, and got her new payload. The consol dinged, telling Jura her ship was fully restocked.

"Thanks Miss Gasco, signal me when its time." Jura said over the radio as she detached and jetted into space.

"Can do, bit its Gascogne!" Jura flinched as she dodged a rock, and didn't respond. It took 15 more minutes for anything of value to be stripped from the freighter. Meia sent the affirmation.

"Ok, Dread teams, ready the torpedoes, and sync up with my targeting computer." That was Meia, concise, almost cold, but that was just how she was. The other six girls other than Meia and Jura gave her a Rodger. Jura typed the sync code, and watched the read outs on the screen. She adjusted her heading, and moved into the spot indicated and hit the ready button for her torpedo. A timer appeared in the corner of the screen, and started ticking down from 30 seconds. As the countdown hit zero, Meia shouted fire, and eight torpedoes flew and burrowed into the crippled hull. A few seconds later, the now wreaked ship detonated in a massive fireball.

Jura paced back and forth, her black heels clicking on the steel plates. She was on the eve of her 20th year, and she prided herself in being prettier than the rest of the crew. The Captain, Gasco, and B.C. had ventured to Mejale to recruit some more girls, and trade for supplies. All traces of her abusive past or child fat, and had the perfect amounts of that padding fat that all women need. Her golden hair was all natural now, and hung down well past her waist. She wore a black silk sheath dress tied with a brown rope belt. The dress was slit up the side of both her legs to the waist, and down the front from the neck to just above the waist. It fit like a latex glove. Her saber that she won in her last contest was attached to the rope belt.

The inner airlock shuddered as the 20 tons of steel slowly drew apart, revealing the landing shuttle Jura had arrived in. The door settled with a sub sonic thump that shook the deck. Gas Vented and the steps descended from the door of the ship. The door popped open and The Tree returning crew members came out. The Captain went to relieve Meia of temporary command, B.C. went to go check with Parfait, and Gasco went to get her crew. A few minutes later, a Green haired girl with bright purple eyes walked timidly out the door. A predatory grin grew onto Jura's face. She waited until the girl reached the bottom, and approached her. Jura slackened her leg and placed her hand on her hip, in what would be known as an alluring pose in a few years.

"Well, hello there, miss…" She paused, just as Velour had 2 years previous.

"Umm, Orangello." She said, a bit of bite behind the answer. Jura's smile deepened, and more arrogant confidence entered her voice.

"Well, then, Miss Orangello, welcome to just the best pirate fleet in the whole of space. You made a good choice when you decided to join us. I'm here to show you around, get you situated, and get you ready to join the Dread squadron." She lowered her head.

"My name," She flicked her head up and her emerald eyes flashed with a mix of emotions. "Is Jura Basil Elden."

The End. Hope you all like my take why Jura is such a wonderfully Vapid and arrogant beauty.


End file.
